UNITED: Robotics Club competes in FIRST science, technology contest

From left, Cabot Bisbee, Ryan Brett, Craig Fry, Miles Stahl, Bria Persaud and Kylie Wolfe are members of the United High School Robotics Club that recently competed in Pittsburgh. (United High School_

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ARMAGH — Recently, the United High School Robotics Club took their robot to a competition in Pittsburgh.

Team 3567, “The Aviators,” created a robot that took them all the way to the quarterfinals of the tournament which was held at the Petersen Events Center.

Each year the competition is sponsored by FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), an organization dedicated to inspiring students to become leaders in science and technology. This year students were required to build robots that could throw a Frisbee.

Noah Walls, a freshman member of the club commented that “the hardest thing about the project was getting the robot to work. One of the challenges was getting all the parts to work together and getting the robot to do what we wanted it to do.”

Going into the competition, Michael Lee, the adviser of the club for eight years now, commented that “There were no problems with the robot; it was working like we wanted it to. In fact, our robot could shoot 45 feet.”

Senior and Robotics Club President Craig Fry said that being at the competition was like “being on a different planet. It was so cool. It felt like we were in a race car competition. The teamwork was amazing.”

Fry also said that after being a club member for all of his high school years, he was “upset because this was my last competition … I have had so much fun with this club.”

Members of this year’s Robotics Club are seniors Cabot Bisbee (treasurer), Ryan Brett, Fry, Miles Stahl and Kylie Wolfe (vice president); juniors Cooper Arblaster and Ryan Snyder; sophomores Jesse Isenberg, McKenzee Miller, Jason Robinson and Ryan Schwartz; and freshmen Caleb Bracken, Matthew Dill, Madeline Horell, Brendan Marino, Bria Persaud (secretary), Joshua Roof, Caleb Walls, Levi Walls and Noah Walls. The Robotics Club meets during school and focuses their energy on building a robot for the annual competition. As Lee said, “We built a robot that could shoot a basketball for last year’s competition.”